1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a film containing an oxide and conjugated polymer chains and a method of producing the film. In particular, application to electronic devices and optical devices is expected using conjugated polymer chains.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conjugated polymers have been widely studied because they have desirable characteristics required for electronic materials and luminescent materials. Since such conjugated polymers have a conjugated structure in the main chain direction, they exhibit high electrical conductivity in that direction. Accordingly, if the main chains of conjugated polymers are extended and oriented, it is possible to utilize the physical properties of conjugated polymer materials more effectively. However, at present, there are no satisfactory techniques for orienting the main chains of conjugated polymers, and thus conjugated polymers are often used in random orientations.
Accordingly, in general, when a plurality of electrodes are connected to a conjugated polymer material and electric charges are transferred, a direction in which the electric charges are transferred in the conjugated polymer material (i.e., direction between the electrodes) does not always coincide with an extension direction of the main chain of the conjugated polymer material.
Consequently, in the process of transferring electric charges between the plurality of electrodes, charge transfer between different polymers is required to occur a large number of times. Such a charge transfer between different polymers is carried out by hopping, and therefore, the speed of the charge transfer is lower than that in the case where electric charges are transferred within the same polymer. Accordingly, a film containing a conjugated polymer cannot achieve high electrical conductivity, and thus improvement has been desired.
To overcome this problem, U.S. Patent Application No. 2006/0147677 has proposed that the electrical conductivity is improved by orienting the main chain of a conjugated polymer.
U.S. Patent Application No. 2006/0147677 discloses a method of producing a structured material in which a tubular-structured oxide is arranged so as to be parallel to a boundary surface with a substrate, and an electrically conductive conjugated polymer is carried in pores in the tubular structure.
However, in the method of producing the structured material described in U.S. Patent Application No. 2006/0147677, a surfactant does not contain a precursor of the oxide but contains only a functional group for forming the conjugated polymer. Accordingly, the distance between the functional group to be polymerized and a wall portion of the oxide is not exclusively determined on the basis of the molecular structure of the surfactant. As a result, in conducting the polymerization between functional groups for forming the conjugated polymer, the positions of the functional groups are not always completely controlled. Consequently, conjugated polymer chains having a sufficient molecular weight are not always formed.